he call it art?" asked Miss Panney.

"Yes, she did--that she felt she must cook, and she lived for some time
with a family named Drane, in Pennsylvania, with whom the doctor used
to be acquainted. She had a letter from them which fully satisfied me.
On her part she said she would be content with the salary I paid my
last cook."

"Did she call it salary?" exclaimed the old lady.

"That was the word she used," answered Mrs. Tolbridge, "and as I said
before, the only question she asked was whether or not my husband was
in trade."

"What did that matter?" asked the other.

"It seemed to matter a great deal. She said she had never yet lived with
a tradesman, and never intended to. She was with Mrs. Drane, the widow of
a college professor, for several months, and when the family found they
could no longer afford to keep a servant who could do nothing but cook,
La Fleur returned to her relatives, and looked for another position; but
not until I came, she said, had any one applied who was not in trade."

"She must be an odd creature," said Miss Panney.

"She is odder than odd," was the answer. At this moment the maid came in
and told Mrs. Tolbridge that the madam cook wanted to see her. The lady
of the house excused herself, and in a few minutes returned, smiling.

"She wished to tell me," 'said she, "before my visitor left, that the
name of the 'sweet' which she gave us at luncheon is _la promesse_, being
merely a promise of what she is going to do, when she gets about her
everything she wants."

"Kitty Tolbridge," said Miss Panney, solemnly, "whatever happens, don't
mind that woman's oddity. Keep your mind on her cooking, and don't
consider anything else. She is an angel, and she belongs to the very
smallest class of angels that visit human beings. You may find, by the
dozen, philanthropists, kind friends, helpers and counsellors, the most
loving and generous; but a cook like that in a Thorbury family is as rare
as--as--as--I can't think of anything so rare. I came here, Kitty, to
find out if you had written to that woman, and now to discover that the
whole matter has been settled in two days, and that the doors of Paradise
have been opened to Dr. Tolbridge--for you know, Kitty, that the Garden
of Eden was truly Paradise until they began to eat the wrong things--I
feel as if I had been assisting at a miracle."

CHAPTER X

A SILK GOWN AND A BOTTLE

It was toward the end of June that Miss Dora Bannister re